The tidy kitchen.

That is one thing we try to achieve before going to sleep. Tidy the kitchen. Most times when rising from a sound sleep, the kitchen is what I head to first. There have been many times in the recent past that the kitchen was left in disarray from previous night’s events with the remnants of tea-cups, wine-glasses, even a plate with half eaten crackers or the detritus from fruit with glutenous grape pips, plum, apricot and peach stones tucked in sticky tissues or sometimes just brazenly left naked on the timber coffee table or even left to drown in the wine-glass itself.  There was a wantonness about it all. One could argue that that sort of recklessness ought to be accepted between grown adults and that surely after over fifty years of dalliance together, little offence could be attached to what really ought to be looked upon by most mature adults, as a domicile freedom. There never was any offence. Both of us are not addicted to domestic fanaticism or keeping things in scrupulous order. We do enjoy beauty and domestic architectural simplicity.

But, as of some weeks ago, I decided, without making it into a big deal, to tidy the living room and kitchen before the good-nights.  The dishes were always washed before the start of the evening, usually while the weather report is on the TV. The tidying up of the evening remnants was left till next morning. Not anymore now.

This recent tidying up had an immediate and amazing result. Each morning now before I reach for the kettle and coffee maker, all is free of clutter. The sink is clean with the sun streaming over the polished stone bench-top, playing around the beauty of a dark blue vase while giving a pleasant contrast to the Valencia oranges and deep magenta purple plums all held on a large multi-coloured ceramic dish.

It is nice to lord it over the morning’s ritual, and the coffee and tea making is done in an uncluttered environment. It really starts the day on a positive note. I make the coffee in an Italian coffee maker. It is in three compartments with the bottom holding the water above which is the holder of the coffee and on top of that again the actual coffee pot.  The last coffee device was similar but the rubber ring had worn out. We went all over Sydney trying to get a replacement ring but none fitted the pot. We ended buying another pot with three replacement rings for the future. Helvi always know when the coffee is being made because the air-conditioning is spreading its fragrance through the bedroom. It’s not always made at the same time which adds a kind of spice and adventurism to our domestic life.

Gravity defied.

Manchurian Pear

The above tree is not going to be with us much longer. At least not in its present shape. It was getting too large. During storms we watched the trunk twisting and turning alarmingly. With our previous farming life, and breeding alpacas, we were told to keep animals away from those type of trees. They, out of the blue, will drop large branches. Not deliberately, but as part of their nature. They split easily. But… they are also very beautiful trees giving us freely an amazing display of burnished gold during autumn. Unfortunately when they drop (unexpectedly) heavy branches, they fall down to earth and not up to heavenly skies. That is determined by the law of gravity.

I was told that this law doesn’t apply everywhere in our universe. There are many places in the more celestial areas where this law of gravity doesn’t exists. I have always been baffled that things fall down. As a child I remember seeing twirling seed pots taking a long time to reach the ground after leaving the safety of the parental tree.. Those seed pots attempted clearly to defy the law of gravity, and were very brave to do so.

In our condominium it was decided to cut some trees near the street that were pushing over a boundary fence. We were happy to go without a fence. It is a bit unfortunate, but fences seem very popular in Australia. Perhaps real estate when owned, has to be protected by a fence. Do people steal bits of real estate? Will we arrive home after watching a movie in the cinema, and find our kitchen has been stolen, or the front door?

As you can see, our kitchen is still in place, at least at twenty minutes to eight in the morning. Anyway, we agreed to let those fence pushing trees to be cut down, and also asked to include for the arborist the lopping of our Manchurian pear to about the size it was when we moved in our own (fenced off) town-house. I watched the cutting of the trees with great interest. There is something about a man swinging high up, chainsaw dangling from his belt, cutting a large tree. Of course, here too the law of gravity reigns supreme and no branch moved skywards.

All trees were fed into a monstrous machine that chipped it into mulch. The mulch was subsequently blown into a large truck. The truck then deposited it on the side of one townhouse for the use of the residents needs to mulch their gardens. The last item to be lopped to size was our own Manchurian tree.  It too was fed into this machine.

It looks very sad now. Those trees are very fast growing. We are sure that next spring it will double in size again. That’s life. A renewal of everything. It will be great to watch it rear up and grow. Below, the ‘after’ picture of the tree.